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We were chatting about cliche bad-slashfic narrative structure; CMom's pet peeves for the evening were "sex manual" scenes (one-two-three-dick! one-two-three-pump!) and feminine-style conversation. Mine was the phenomenon that I call SAT.
SAT = Sitting And Thinking.
A lot of apprentice writers use SAT as a substitute for actions and dialogue that can convey much the same information. It can happen anywhere in a story, but the commonest and worst place to put it is in the very first scene:
Blair entered the loft and started grading papers, but ended up staring out the window while he remembered the time that Jim kicked him out. He should have known it was about Alex [etc: cue several paragraphs of Blair recalling canon events and his reaction to them].
SAT is the opposite of narrative movement. SAT is stagnation. SAT may bother Gina more than it warrants, but never mind that. A passage of SAT can be replaced with outright narrative:
Blair entered the loft and started grading papers, but ended up staring out the window while he remembered the time that Jim kicked him out.
"I need my space back," Jim said. [etc: cue several paragraphs of canon events told in flashback, complete with Blair's reaction to them].
This device is sometimes called "the false flashback". While the false flashback is a more vivid and convincing way to build characterization than SAT, it still suffers from the problem that, by the time it's over and we return to the present, the reader has forgotten what "the present" was, because she never knew anything of significance about the present, in the first place.
The key is that your story should begin with action that takes place in the story's present. Any action. It doesn't have to start in the middle of the action, although that's a decent way to go:
Blair shuddered, finally, and came. Jim grunted into Blair's shoulder and [etc].
As long as somebody's doing something (or somebody), or the narrative is presenting sensory details for us to picture, it is good. It is better than SAT, anyway. Try to keep your first scene going for more than half a page-- at least 400 words-- before 1) getting deep into the viewpoint character's thoughts, or 2) switching the scene to something that happened in the past.
Suppose this is the first paragraph of your Oz story:
Beecher leaned against the door and watched the poker game in front of his pod. Hill was laughing, which meant he had a lousy hand. The ambient noise of the cellblock was duller than usual, as if everyone felt as oppressed by recent events as Beecher did.
Many stories would use that last sentence, with its reference to recent events, as a transition to SAT:
Beecher leaned against the door and watched the poker game in front of his pod. Hill was laughing, which meant he had a lousy hand. The ambient noise of the cellblock was duller than usual, as if everyone felt as oppressed by recent events as Beecher did.
Most of Em City's inhabitants had liked either the powerful Adebisi or the virtuous Said, so the death of the former at the hands of the latter had affected everyone. Beecher had been on the ground floor when it happened. He'd watched Adebisi stalk to his pod, a sick feeling growing in his stomach [etc]
Or the "as if everyone felt as oppressed by recent events as Beecher did" might be used as a transition to a false flashback. Note that the example below is more vivid than SAT:
Beecher leaned against the door and watched the poker game in front of his pod. Hill was laughing, which meant he had a lousy hand. The ambient noise of the cellblock was duller than usual, as if everyone felt as oppressed by recent events as Beecher did.
When McManus announced Adebisi's transfer to genpop, Beecher stood up and craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the Nigerian inmate stalking to his pod.
Beecher wondered, was Kareem Said still in there?
Again-- by the time we return to the "present" from this episode 32 flashback, are you going to remember where and when the present is?
Here's a version with neither SAT nor flashback:
Beecher leaned against the door and watched the poker game in front of his pod. Hill was laughing, which meant he had a lousy hand. The ambient noise of the cellblock was duller than usual, as if everyone felt as oppressed by recent events as Beecher did.
O'Reilly walked by.
"Any word on Said?" Beecher asked.
"Still in the Hole, that's all anyone knows," O'Reilly replied.
98% of all fanfic writers use too much SAT at least some of the time. Including me. A very few writers (sometimes including me) suffer from the opposite problem-- they don't show *enough* character self-consciousness, which makes the characters' motives and actions incomprehensible.
When I am Queen of the Universe, I will force all (pro and fanfic) writers to do the following exercise:
Print out your latest story. Cross out all the thoughts and emotions. Read what's left. Is it incomprehensible? Then insert some actions and dialogue that imply the thoughts and emotions you crossed out.
With every sentence, stop and ask yourself, What does this imply will happen next?
This exercise may result in a vastly better draft of your story; I can also imagine that it would result in a mechanical Frankenstein draft of your story, but in either case, it's good to hone your ability to notice the parts in the narrative where nothing is happening.
Powerful fic focuses on externalities, and allows the reader to intuit most of the emotions. Fic that focuses on internalities tends to induce claustrophobia and/or sensory deprivation.
Fit or fat? Reduce your SAT!